Carl Icahn Already Up $120+ Million on Yahoo Bet (YHOO)

Ain't it just grand to be a corporate raider? The Yahoo fight hasn't even started yet, and already Carl Icahn has made more than $120 million.

How? By starting to buy Yahoo's stock the moment Microsoft withdrew its bid--when Wall Street analysts were frantically downgrading the stock and experts (yours truly) were predicting it would fall to the low $20s. Which it did. Which is where Carl Icahn hoovered up his first 15 million shares. And then he snapped up another 15 million or so the next day, when it was trading at about $24-$25.

(Carl acquired a lot of these shares via options, of course, so he could keep buying hand over fist before everyone sussed out what he was up to and drove the price up to its current "Carl Icahn takeover premium.")

Over the next week, as Yahoo bounced around $25-$26, Carl kept buying, right up until the time he (or or one of his agents) leaked the news that he might launch a proxy fight, at which point the stock immediately spiked about $2.

Add all those timely purchases up, and we estimate that Carl Icahn has a cost basis of about $25 for his 59 million Yahoo shares. Which means that, at this writing, he's about $120 million to the good.